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A week or two ago Christianity today published an essay by Canadian pastor Jacob Birch, claiming that “No, Western Christians are not in exile”.

Birch is absolutely right that the language of exile can betray some of the worst impulses of Western evangelicalism. But at the same time, I believe that the language of exile is exactly what the Bible offers us to combat all of this.

Birch begins by noting that many white evangelical churches today are accustomed to hearing themselves portrayed as exiles, primarily in light of the shifts toward secularization and marginalization of Christianity. This is no doubt true in some parts of the country and the continent (including its Canadian context).

But alas, in my own Bible Belt context, the idea of ​​“exile” seems totally absent. Instead, ironically enough, I found that Birch’s proposed metaphor – that of “the occupation” – tends to be the dominant analogy, even if it is not articulated in these words.

Occupation, after all, implies that a hostile force has invaded its own territory, holding a people hostage in its own country. This is, in several points, a reality in the biblical history of the people of God. This is why, for example, the question from the religious leaders to Jesus about whether to pay taxes to Caesar was so loaded.

According to the mindset of many first century Jews, to say yes to this question would be to affirm Rome’s occupation of their land – which they believe should rightly be ruled not by a puppet government under Caesar but by the house of David. Jesus looked beyond this temporal occupation to a deeper, more primary occupation—that of taking over the strongman’s house (Matthew 12:29).

The issue of occupation, however, was hardly unreasonable or unspiritual. It was about God’s justice (“How could the God of Israel allow this to happen?”) and the humiliation of a people. The problem was how to displace the occupiers from their illegitimate domination.

In fact, the question of how to handle the occupation of Rome has led to some of the most dangerous divisions among occupied people – with a spectrum ranging from insurgents like Barabbas, to fanatics like Simon, to collaborators like Matthew and Zacchaeus.

In an occupation, the “outsiders” (the occupants) are those who are foreign to the land. But in exile, it is the “initiates” who learn to navigate a strange place.

The language of exile is not the same kind of singular experience. It is part of Christian history for those of us who are born or grafted into the house of Jacob. And the Bible applies this experience to us continuously, between the ascension of Christ and his return.

Peter addressed the church as “chosen of God, exiles scattered in the provinces” (1 Peter 1:1) and told them to “live your time as strangers here in awe” ( v. 17). It was not an acknowledgment of how different the first century church was just the same. They were not to find their pattern of life in “the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors” (v. 18).

The exile of which Peter spoke did not mean that believers lacked belonging but that they had a different belonging: to “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (2:9). Like Daniel in Babylon, such an exile means that the goal is not to remove Nebuchadnezzar from his throne or to rule the Babylonian empire. On the contrary, the goal was for the exiles to avoid becoming to like the Babylonians.

By urging the church to be “strangers and exiles,” Peter wanted them to see that their real problem was not the emperor or the surrounding culture. They could still honor everyone, including the emperor. Rather, it was to “abstain from sinful desires, which make war against your soul” (2:11).

Being under occupation – in the sense of living in a promised land dominated by enemies – believers might seek to assimilate into the larger culture or rage against the occupiers. But Peter warned that neither should be the case. Instead, they were both to live “good lives among the heathen” and ensure that their obedience was to God, not to this audience (v. 12).

Can exile be used dangerously to convey a sense of resentment at a loss of cultural power? Absolutely, it can, in the same way as holiness can be used to suggest self-righteous perfection or that assignment can be used to suggest colonization. But these dangerous uses do not reflect their biblical context.

In the original exile, the people of Israel were constantly reminded that their fate was not the result of the Babylonians and could not be resolved by finding another power (e.g. Egypt or Assyria) to fight the Babylonians. God solely responsible for their exile. This is why the call of the Israelites was not to find their own Nebuchadnezzar, but to to repent and claim their own distinctiveness as the people of God.

Moreover, the language of exile makes it clear that it is not just about returning home. Jeremiah and Ezekiel made it clear to the exiles that they could not return home. The glory of God had left the temple, not driven out by outside forces, but taken away because of the sins of his own people (Ezekiel 10; Jer. 7).

That’s the bad news. But the good news is that since it was God who sent his people into exile, he was with them there. They might find it and sing the song of the Lord in a foreign land.

They could build houses and have babies and adjust to some of the externalities of Babylonian life (like Daniel being called a Babylonian name and serving in the court of Nebuchadnezzar, for example). All the while they might refuse to give in to the expected idolatries or the more subtle temptation to lose the “strangeness” and distinctiveness of their Abrahamic identity.

In fact, the interest of the language of exile is exactly the opposite of the idea that Western Christians should bemoan or indignant at the loss of a “Christian culture”. The fact is that in every place and every culture, from the first to the second coming of Jesus, all The Christian community must consider itself as “strangers and exiles”.

If we look back to a time when we didn’t feel we weren’t exiles, it’s because we had become acclimated to idolatry and accommodated it, like wishing for the return of a Previous Nebuchadnezzar. And if we ever look forward to the moment when we can finally shift our sense of marginalization and find a cultural “home” in this world, it’s also because we’re used to idolatry – just like wishing for a different Nebuchadnezzar in the future .

That said, whenever we use the language of exile incorrectly to lament a culture that is darkening or becoming increasingly hostile – rather than seeing our situation as basically the same as every other era before us – then we don’t understand what the Bible means by exile.

The language of exile eliminates both our sense of entitlement and our siege mentality. We don’t try to blend in with what seems “normal” in the society around us – and we don’t rage every time we’re not housed in it. Instead, we see our normal situation as a pilgrimage of faith.

“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw and welcomed them from afar, admitting that they were strangers and strangers in the earth,” we said the writer to the Hebrews.

“People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had thought of the country they had left, they would have had the opportunity to return there. Instead, they longed for a better land, a heavenly land” (Heb. 11:13-16).

An exiled identity does not say, “Oh no, we are marginalized! How can we fix this?” Rather, he asks, “Why am I not more marginalized? Have I adapted to my own appetites in such a way that I no longer feel the desire to delve deeper into the unknown? »

I believe that the real danger for us today is not that Christians see themselves as exiled in a distant country, but that they might see their own country – the United States, Canada, or wherever they be – like the Promised Land. This means that they will either seek to embrace everything around them as God’s milk and honey, or attempt to uproot the “Amalekites” or “Philistines” who take “our country” away from us.

I believe that Western Christians are exiles, just like Eastern Christians. The Christians of the 21st century are exiles in the same way as the Christians of the previous 20 centuries.

But the resentment, rights, culture wars and Twitter trolling we exhibit today are not the actions of outsiders and exiles. Rather, they are signs that we are not exiled enough.

Russell Moore directs the Public Theology Project at Christianity today.